I have written previously about the sad fact that poodles (and boxers, and some other breeds) are prone to developing cancer. My own family has lost more than one beloved pet to this insidious disease. Most experts believe cancer is triggered primarily by environmental causes in both humans and their pets, though certain genetic weaknesses make it easier to trigger.

Alas, a friend this past week discovered that his beloved dog has lymphoma, a systemic cancer. He is currently out of work (as are millions of others with millions more to come in the current economic crisis), was devastated that he simply cannot afford the expensive chemotherapy his vet suggested. Feeling very depressed about losing his sweet dog in addition to all the other troubles his struggling family is facing, he felt entirely helpless and more than a little bit like a total failure.

So I wrote him a nice little email about my experience with canine cancer, and how that very expensive chemotherapy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not only does it not gain the dog any arguably high quality time on the planet, it causes many peripheral problems too. Our dear Bob’s beautiful poodle hair fell out, he suddenly gained so much weight he could hardly walk, and time for “The Shot” came right on schedule anyway, he didn’t gain a single day. Even though it cost us $1500 way back in the 1990s, and those costs have doubled or tripled in the years since.

When our sweet Beau was diagnosed with cancer, we chose not to go the chemo route because we already knew it wasn’t worth the cost. So I told my friend about some herbal treatments that some vets recommend either as systemic support during the course of the disease or to use in conjunction with chemo to offset the gnarly side-effects. These are mostly anti-oxidants, general health supports, and may include energy and/or appetite stimulants. These really can help your dog feel better day to day, have more energy, avoid suffering rapid decline, and in conjunction with reasonable pain relief can at least make your dog’s last months much more comfortable.

Links below go to various pet-med and veterinary sites that offer formulations for cancer support and pain relief that will not break your budget. It is actually a good thing to feel that you’re doing something for your loving companion, while allowing for gentle, focused interaction at the end of a lifetime (the dog’s) spent together.

Links:

Canine Herbal Treatments: Cancer
Foster&Smith: Tramadol [pain relief]
Herbal Medicine as an Alternative Treatment
Integrative Treatment of Cancer in Dogs
All Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats
Alternative Medicine for Dogs

In this family of poodle-lovers the issue of grooming has always been a struggle of time versus money. Sometimes we’ve got enough to take the dog to a pro groomer and pay for the service, at other times we’ve been broke and end up having to do it ourselves. When we moved to the mountains – and our poods became “Giant Mutant Mountain Poodles,” grooming became a 100% in-house job. We purchased a couple of pairs of good electric grooming shavers and many blades, a blade sharpener system that never really worked well, and some attachable combs so we could regulate the length of hair being cut.

The combs never really worked either. So the twice-yearly operation became one of simply “shaving the poodle,” and our daughter took on the job as therapy for her emotionally stressful life. She’d tell her friends at work and on the softball team, as well as her then-current boyfriend, that she’d be unavailable for the weekend. She’d set up in a nice shady part of the yard with her comb and brush and shears on a blanket, and get to work.

She got pretty good at it, too. In the spring and again in the fall she’d shave the poodle down to practically nothing, trim the puffs on the tail and head and ears with scissors, clean out and disinfect ears, trim toenails and hair in between the toes. The poodle would be good for about 6 months (when the dreadlocks again had to be dealt with).

Here’s a cool poodle-grooming video that should help any poodle-lover out there thinking about shaving his/her own poodle for a change! Enjoy, and don’t forget that poodles do have particular issues with their feet and ears that require extra attention…

For all you poodle people out there who are committed to physical fitness and energetic workouts, here’s the perfect workout video for you AND your poodles! It features Mariko Takahashi in a parody of Susan Powter’s first fitness video. It was created by Nagi Noda for Panasonic, one of 10 films made for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Enjoy, and try not to choke while you’re laughing!

Big Ras Bob our first black standard poodle was a beautiful dog. And among the many notable qualities of the breed – such as beauty, intelligence, non-allergenic coat, minimal shedding and a palpable love of humans – there is also a sort of pride in being what they are. I’ve always called that “Breed-ism.” They know they’re the cream of the crop, and comport themselves accordingly.

We were living in St. Augustine, Florida in a rented duplex near the airport for awhile. Until that house burned down due to faulty wiring in the vacant half, quite the traumatic family event even though the only life lost in the fire were three goldfish. Our next door neighbors had a beautiful purebred black chow they didn’t keep a tight leash on, so it was inevitable that when she went into heat the full roster of neighborhood male-mutts were going to do their best to get their sperm into the mix.

But that girl-chow had eyes only for Bob. She was completely smitten and determined to capture his qualities for her own offspring. She was surprisingly vicious to her other suitors, keeping herself exclusive to the love of her life, and sure enough was soon pregnant with a litter of… um… ChowDoodles? PooChows?

The house burned down before they were born so we never got to see them, but we were quite sure they’d be some very cool dogs. And within the history of purebred dog breeding the exemplars are often crossed-out after developing some considerable genetic infirmities, so as to get “fresh blood” into the system, strengthen the genome, and then those out-crosses are put back into the pedigree tree for producing new, healthier champions a few generations down the line. This has occurred many times in poodles, who are among the oldest of breeds.

I’ve mentioned the genetic (and possibly epigenetic) issues that afflict poodles in our current culture. Our vet told us after having to put down the second of our beloved dogs that with poodles and boxers, if they don’t die getting hit by a car they are almost sure to die of cancer. That’s not a happy situation, not the least because these dogs are so very sweet and loved to excess by their people. I’d sure like to know if those PoodChows lived longer than Bob did, and didn’t develop cancer.

I’ve also mentioned Labradoodles since meeting a golden who immediately stole my heart. I understand that the offspring of the cross can have lab hair or poodle hair, this one was essentially indistinguishable from a poodle and could easily be re-integrated into a championship line for “new blood” grandpups.

I found a list of the most popular current poodle out-breeds over at Pet Lover blog, and simply imagining what these dogs might look like is definitely a fun exercise! Try your imagination out on some of these…

Saint Berdoodle – Saint Bernard + Poodle. A dog smart enough to rescue the skiers, but who drank the brandy on the way.

Scoodle – Scottish Terrier + Poodle. A dog short enough to lick the ground and insists on wearing a kilt.

Eskapoo – American Eskimo Dog + Poodle. The snootiest sled dogs on the trail.

Pugapoo – Pug + Poodle. Why would anybody want to do that to a perfectly good poodle?

Doodleman Pinscher – Doberman + Poodle. Would probably make an excellent regiment of war dogs.

English Boodle – English Bulldog + Poodle. Who put him up to it? How could she stoop so low?

You’ve probably seen examples of the rest of the list, which includes Cockapoos, Schnoodles, Lhasapoos, Pekepoos, Pomapoos and Weimardoodles. Hmmm… I can see that some of these crossbreeds aren’t going to contribute much in the way of desirable genes to the king-breed of Poodle-Poodles. But if anyone’s interested, you’ll find a list of cross-breeders at DoodleFinder. Be sure to exercise your imagination BEFORE you buy, so you won’t be unpleasantly surprised!

It might have added three months to his life, though in the end we did have to take him in for “The Shot,” crying all the way. The most awful thing about the chemo was that it not only made poor Bob’s beautiful hair fall out in fistfuls, it also made him gain weight like nobody’s business. Some of that was no doubt the drug effects themselves, but another part of it was that he was voraciously hungry all the time and we just didn’t have the heart to deny him. By the time he died he was at least 20 pounds overweight, which is a very considerable amount for a fine-lined dog such as a poodle.

It reminded me of a friend we had way back in the 1970s, who was sort of short and chunky even though he was a confirmed vegetarian. I figured it was just his particular frame and metabolism, because you’d have to eat a whole lot more carrots, spinach and rice than he ever did to put that much weight on. He had a dog named Fasha, a mostly white beagle-like mutt with serious attitude, who proved the adage that people and their dogs tend to look alike. Fasha was as chunky as our friend, but actually did eat enough to account for it.

I’ve been reading in the news about the worsening obesity crisis in America, where the ‘average’ person weighs nearly twice what most people in the rest of the world weigh. Just another symptom of our fondness for conspicuous consumption, as well as the shift in our food supply toward ever more processed foods that contain excessive amounts of high fructose corn syrup that does nothing so much as pack on the pounds. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles don’t help, and now even our children are obese because they no longer spend lots of time outdoors playing at running and climbing games. And that’s a symptom of our increasingly estranged neighborhood arrangements and the dangers kids face these days that simply weren’t a big concern when I was growing up.

As we get fatter, so do our dogs and cats. As many as 30% of our dogs are overweight according to vet surveys, and the actual problem on the ground could be worse. Our lack of exercise translates to dogs not getting a lot of exercise either. And just as our extra poundage contributes to all sorts of health problems and early death, that is true for dogs as well (but, interestingly enough, apparently not for fat cats).

Poodle people are generally not too tolerant of fat poodles, as they spend inordinate amounts of time and money buying them the best foods, getting them meticulously groomed at the best salons, and generally showing them off for the gorgeous animals they truly are. A fat poodle isn’t particularly endearing, and you don’t see that many of them. Perhaps poodle people aren’t all that overweight either. Or, I haven’t known any fat poodle people – of the standard-imperial variety, though I have seen some chubby toys and minis.

If our dogs reflect our lifestyles as well as our very selves, perhaps their weight gain should alert owners that some real changes need making. The links below offer good information about the problem and advice from vets and pet food manufacturers on how to help your dogs lose weight and live longer. I’d like to hear some stories about poodle people out there who have dealt with an overweight beauty, and how this helped them become more conscious of their own lifestyle choices as well. Comment away!

Links:

The Overweight Standard Poodle

Overweight Dogs Are A Big Problem

Articles: Weight Loss In Dogs

Pedigree Weight Maintenance

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, always a major Big Deal here on the mountain. That all started decades ago when we lived in Oklahoma, and signed on as the communications directors for a grant-based hunger project called “The Whole World Family Supper” that was scheduled to be a Thanksgiving feast for everybody, everywhere.

All of a sudden our little family gatherings just weren’t enough anymore. By the time we’d moved to Florida and became full time performers – with a friends list that included circus folk, traveling medicine shows and all sorts of other itinerant musicians and crusty jugglers – Thanksgiving became an annual pilgrimage to a St. Augustine boatyard an ex-Air Force friend managed. Price of admission was at least one homeless person or otherwise destitute person, and it got bigger every year. By the time we moved to North Carolina the boatyard Thanksgiving feast (a pot-luck affair) offered 4 turkeys and two hams pit-cooked by our host, at least 60 people, and stretched out with leftovers for the entire 4-day holiday weekend.

Now that we’re here on the mountain it’s still a Big Deal. We average at least 24 people every year, which is a heck of a crowd to host in a 28′ square cabin complete with dogs. And we often have 7 or 8 dog guests too, friends of our poods and strays, part of our many friends and family’s families. They get Thanksgiving Dinner too. It is a family supper, after all, and dogs are family.

We usually have a couple of turkeys, sometimes three. Not everybody eats turkey – some here are certifiable vegetarians, others are vegetarians who make a special exception for holiday feasts. I usually cook one a day or two in advance, slice up nicely and pack into tupperware for seconds and thirds. That way I only have to cook one for presentation’s sake, whether the food table’s on the deck, out in the yard, or inside the cabin because it’s raining (or, God forbid, snowing). It can get really crowded when that happens, so we feed the dogs in the shed and quite a few guests will choose to consume their meal there too.

Now, dogs can’t eat everything I make for Thanksgiving. It takes some thought and preparation to concoct them a fine homemade dog feast. By cooking the extra turkey beforehand, I’ve the neck and giblets as well as juices and pickings that we don’t need to use for the dog meal. To that I can add the neck and giblets from the T-Day turkey too. I boil these good, pick off any meat from the neck, and discard the bones. I get an extra bag or two of bread stuffing mix (it’s cheap), sometimes go ahead and cook up a cake pan of cornbread the night before too. The bread and cornbread gets crumbled into a big tupperware container and I pour the giblets boiling water and roast drippings over it, mix it all up well.

Trick for the dogs is not to add any salt, any butter, any cooking oils, any chopped onions, celery or herbs that I use in preparing stuffing for humans. I add turkey skin to the giblet boiling water too, but this has to be removed from the mix because it’s hard for dogs to digest. Don’t make gravy out of this stuff, the dogs will like it just as it is. While making up the side dishes I usually put a scoop or two of mashed potatoes and some hopping john into the bucket to mix in well too. Chop those giblets up so they’re the size of the picked turkey meat.

I divvy this all up in old pie tins according to how many dogs are present. Feeding them down in the shed while we’re eating keeps them from being underfoot and begging food they shouldn’t have from the human diners. Dogs shouldn’t have anything sweet, fruity, highly salted or with large butter/oil parts. They should of course never have turkey bones either.

The links below offer useful information about what dogs can and can’t share of your Thanksgiving dinner. Plan ahead and your canine family members won’t have to be left out of the celebration.

Links:

Could Thanksgiving Dinner Kill Your Dog?

A Dog’s Thanksgiving Day

Include Fido In The Feast!

“They say poodles aren’t ‘real’ dogs. At least, that’s what I tell motel desk people when we’re on the road with our Imperials and they say dogs aren’t allowed. It almost always works. In truth, their intelligence is amazingly human-like. They learn quickly, are highly creative, and love to be stars.”

That’s from the ‘About’ page of this blog. It describes something every ‘Poodle Person’ knows, and it’s honestly isn’t that difficult to convince other people – like your average motel desk clerk – that it’s true.

For a young guy being set up with a blind date, ‘personality’ isn’t necessarily a strong recommendation. Parents attempting to deal with a high-energy, short attention span child who might be better off on Ritalin, ‘personality’ can be a descriptive defense mechanism. The word itself contains the noun ‘person’, which does seem fairly exclusive to human beings. Yet poodles are famous for having personality to spare.

Poodle personalities can vary as much as any individual human’s personalities can, and it’s an interesting observation that – like other dogs – poodles will often reflect and compliment the personality of their human. Poodles can become easily spoiled. They’ve a certain presence and aura of superiority that no doubt comes from their pampered, high-class history. They hold themselves proudly, prance elegantly, and are amazingly intelligent, which helps to explain their affinity with nobility.

The intensive grooming that poodles require, along with the fact that they don’t shed like most other dogs do also helps to give people the general impression that poodles just aren’t all that dog-like. But it’s that famous intelligence that best recommends the poodle personality.

I’ve posted about working poodles to show how versatile these dogs really are. A sled poodle is no more or less intelligent than a circus poodle, who is no more or less intelligent than a guide poodle, who is no more or less intelligent than a hunting poodle… they start out with high intelligence and the ability to learn pretty much whatever their humans want them to learn. And they’re adaptable as well, meaning that they can serve different roles depending on the situation.

Standard poodles need more exercise than toys or miniatures, as they are bigger dogs. But they are fairly mellow, not jumpy or nervous. They love people, including children. When our grandson Josh was born, Uncle Bob the poodle loved nothing better than to lie happily on the floor and let that young’un crawl all over him or sleep snuggled against him. He seemed to understand that Josh might be frightened of him if he stood and towered over him, so he’d crawl along the carpet right along with him, making sure Josh was never more than a few feet away.

Josh also learned to stand and walk early – at 9 months – and that was all Bob’s fault. Bob would let Josh grab hold of his neck, ears or shoulder hair, then actually help him stand! They’d walk around the house looking for things Josh could get into, and the poodle never got tired of it. I’d never seen anything like that in all my life!

Poodles do not do well in cages unless you crate-train them early on. None of ours could abide a cage of any variety, but then, we’d never expected them to. Because we live in a rural area our poodles can come and go from the house at will during the day. We never had to specifically train them not to roam, because they’ve never shown any inclination to roam. They don’t want to be that far away from their humans. They sleep inside with us at night, always have. I’ve had outdoor dogs, but poodles just don’t fit the bill. When we lived in town we’d have to walk them, and standard poodles are big and friendly enough dogs to need leash training no matter where you live. You’ll be taking them places.

Those notorious sled poodles got their job because they love to pull. Standard poodles are strong animals, so if they aren’t properly leash trained you’ll definitely be sorry. Luckily, they care a lot for what you want and need from them, can read your mind, and will pretty much leash train themselves if you just let them know what you want.

And while it’s not strictly a personality issue, poodles take some serious upkeep. They love water, so regular baths usually aren’t a problem. Their hair grows like human hair – it doesn’t stop at a certain length, but will grow all the way to the ground if you let it. It’s curly and soft, so easily matted. You can do the fancy hairdo thing, but that takes brushing at least twice daily. I always liked the basic lamb cut – “shave the poodle” my daughter calls it. Take it all off except for the pom on the tail and some length on the ears and they’re good for two or three months.

Ears are an issue because poodles have hair that doesn’t stop growing in their ears, too. This has to be pulled out, the wax should be softened and removed, and mites find a happy home in there. Best to get your groomer or vet to do these jobs, but you can learn to do them at home.

Oh… and poodles love to go for rides. They’ll jump right into the back of the SUV or into the van, take a seat by the window and pay attention to everything going on. Our big male Beau loved to ride shotgun (that allowed us to strap him in with the shoulder belt), with the window down and goggle sunglasses. Really freaks people out at red lights, particularly when we’d be driving the little TR-4 with the top down, clown in the driver’s seat, human-size poodle with sunglasses in the shotgun position.

Links:

Poodle Personalities

More about poodle personalities

Three years after what was left of my family moved to our mountain in North Carolina following the tragic death of our son and business partner SkyPup, we lost Uncle Bob the Poodle to systemic cancer. He’d been with us for 9 years as a certified member of our family as well as our family entertainment troupe.

It broke our hearts, even though we still had Kenya, our female black with the improbable registered name of “Kenya Queen Reba Amelia E.” – our Flying Poodle. She was 5 years younger than Bob, purchased from a breeder in Savannah as a mate for Bob (in hopes we could pay for haircuts with occasional puppy litters). We’d wanted to make especially sure their bloodlines were not closely related, having researched the issue of interbreeding and prevalent cancer and not wanting to make that mistake.

Both Bob and Kenya got sick with what appeared to be a dog-cold in the fall, but unlike Kenya, Bob didn’t get better after a couple of weeks. A few trips to the vet and some expensive testing later, we got the news. Bob had the canine equivalent of Hodgkin’s Disease (a cancer of the lymphatic system). We began a more expensive regimen of chemotherapy we hadn’t known was ever developed or available for dogs with cancer.

The drugs made his hair fall out – a sad thing for a poodle – and caused him to gain weight like nobody’s business. He managed to last until mid-January, when he went down while doing his business in the yard, and couldn’t get up again. It was time. We met the vet in the parking lot, where she gave him “The Shot” and then it was all over except for the tears.

We buried him below the garden and got a nice angel yard statue as a headstone. Over the years 2 more poodle graves have been added, along with those of several other dogs and cats. We call it our “Pet Semetary” after Steven King’s horror novel, though ours is peaceful and shaded by cherry and dogwood trees, with a weeping willow at the top end.

The vet told me that unless a dog gets hit by a car, in his experience standard poodles and boxers ‘always’ die of cancer. Is this a genetic issue? So I did a little research on the web and found an interview with a geneticist and dog fancier published on the American Boxer Club website.

The article is Research on Canine Longevity & Dog Breeding, with geneticist John Armstrong of the University of Ottawa, and it offers some interesting insights. First, he takes some issue with the surveys of dog longevity over sizes and breeds, as well as between mixed breeds and purebred dogs.

Armstrong does mention that a major factor affecting purebred longevity has to be inbreeding. If a breed as old and established as poodles is living shorter lives than before, inbreeding must play a significant role. Yet he mentions another factor that may play just as significant a role in the issue, particularly my issue of why poodles (and boxers) tend to die of cancer rather than some other problem that affects larger dogs…

Increasing exposure to environmental toxins and carcinogens. Which – let’s face it – has to be playing more of a role in the human “cancer epidemic” than inbreeding! Add to this the genetic stress of inbreeding that inevitably occurs because there are only so many lines to draw from, and one gets a predisposition or inability for the immune system to deal with environmental factors that can lead to cancer.

I’m guessing there isn’t much to be done by the individual dog owner, except to be as careful as possible to trace their pup’s ancestry, asking specific questions about how long the relevant ancestors lived and what they died of. With AKC registered animals, this is not too difficult, and many of the previous owners will be happy to share that information if you but ask.

On top of that, a commitment to providing the best food and treats for your animals – choosing organic or close to organic brands with the least added chemicals and preservatives that can be obtained – won’t hurt. Being very careful of any type of table scraps the dog may get, regular health check-ups, lots of exercise… all these things tend to help people avoid cancer, they won’t hurt your poodle either.

But in the end, we all die of something. End of life issues are no less a concern for pets than for people, as people do tend to invest a lot of love and suffer a lot of heartache when their pets die. For that, there are some fine websites dedicated to sharing grief, which can help a lot.

I’ve also written about poodle crossbreeds and the benefits.

Links:

Canine Longevity & Dog Breeding

How Long Will Your Dog Live?

Euthanasia: How Will I Know When It’s “Time”?

Pet Loss Grief Support